Yucatán Peninsula

The Yucatan Peninsula is a peninsula in southeastern Mexico that separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. The name of the peninsula comes from the Nahuatl word yocatlan, meaning "place of richness". The region was home to the Mayans, a powerful civilization known for its great cities and its sacrificial rituals, and it is also home to large rainforests. The Yucatan was the site of the fall of the last native kingdom in the Americas to Spain, which fought wars of conquest in the region from 1527 until the fall of Nojpeten in March 1697. The fall of the Itza consolidated Spanish control over the peninsula, and the Spanish would oversee the grown of cities such as Chichen Itza, Campeche, and Cancun. Today, the Yucatan Peninsula contains the Mexican states of Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo, as well as northern Belize and Guatemala.